4 People and 1 Person
by Katsuko1978
Summary: Full title: "4 People Who Thought This Shape-shifting Stuff was Weird and the 1 Person Who Wasn't Even Phased."     Loki shape-shifts for fun on a regular basis. The central Avengers are used to this. The fringe members... aren't. Movieverse AU.
1. Hank Pym

**Disclaimer:** Thor/Avengers©Marvel  
><strong>Warnings: <strong> Crack, shape-shifting shenanigans, and everyone reacting (or not) to said shenanigans.  
><strong>Notes:<strong>Yet another work inspired by NorseKink on LJ. I couldn't resist the prompt and did it as a 4+1 story because I could get more outside reactions that way.

For the sake of this universe, Loki is an Avenger for reasons that I haven't written as yet. My stories tend to have backstories, and sometimes those never see the light of day. Suffice it to say, the central lineup of this version of the Avengers is Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor, and Loki.

Also, I'm going with movieverse stuff for everyone. That includes the Pyms as they were characterized in the animated Ultimate Avengers movies. Hank Pym is a jackass, but he's a jackass who loves his wife and god help you if you hurt her.

Betaed by Apollymi.

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><p><strong>Hank Pym aka Giant Man aka Yellowjacket <strong>

Hank had never been the type to jump when startled. Hell, when one spent most of his time either very (_very_) small or very (_very_) tall, there wasn't a whole lot that could scare him.

Still, there was only one valid reaction a guy could have when a _giant fucking snake_ literally fell on his head.

"Jesus Mary and Joseph!" he not-yelped, not-flailing and managing to toss said BFS off of himself. The snake somehow broke about five laws of physics to slow its abrupt flight and land on the back of Tony's chair. Tony didn't even flinch, either used to BFSes appearing out of nogoddamnwhere or too damn hung-over to care.

"L'ki g'off m'head."

Hank blinked, because that _almost_ sounded like the not-so-amazing-before-his-third-cup-of-coffee Iron Man has called the BFS _Loki._ Which meant Tony must be _really_ hung-over or still dead drunk.

It didn't help matters any - for Hank's sanity - that the BFS _complied_ with the request.

"Good morning, my friends!" Thor boomed, entering the living room as if he was expecting fanfare. Tony grumbled... _something_ in reply and the BFS lifted its head and hissed at the Asgardian.

"And good morning to you as well, dear brother."

Hank... was _not_ hearing correctly this morning. That had to be it. "That's a big fucking snake."

_Way to go, Captain Obvious,_ he immediately scolded himself. _Those biology classes you took towards that Ph.D. __**really**__ paid off._

Thor gave him a look that implied that Hank was about three fries short of a Happy Meal. "Aye, my brother Loki is currently a python," the Asgardian said slowly. "Apparently, limbs are boring today."

The BFS nodded in agreement, and Hank decided to let the matter drop. He knew when to quit while he was behind.

...maybe he should hit up SHIELD for more funding. If he was going to be spending any more time around Tony Stark's home aka the Avenger's west coast abode, he should at _least_ be compensated for any shock caused by the weird-ass shape-shifting god of mischief.


	2. Peter Parker

**Disclaimers: **See Chapter 1.

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><p><strong>Peter Parker aka Spider-Man<strong>

Peter didn't always get a chance to go along with the group when something big came up; that was the reality when one was a co-ed superhero and had classes to attend and exams to take. This time around he got to play with the big kids (as Loki tended to phrase it, even if Steve played "mom" and told him to knock it off), and they'd headed back to Tony's place in Malibu to sleep it off.

Although he was pretty sure Tony had hit the bars, unless he always grabbed one of his cars and headed out the second the Avengers got back from going toe-to-toe with Dr. Doom. (And he hoped he wasn't the only one weirded out by how... _obsessed_ the dude seemed to be with their resident spell-slinger. Loki certainly hadn't looked too thrilled at the thought, and Thor _did_ fling Mjolnir a bit harder than necessary when Doomface started talking about wedding invitations...)

At any rate, Peter was just planning to hang around until his flight left that afternoon to take him back to New York in time to study for his chem test the next morning. Tony'd offered up use of his private plane for that, and Peter wasn't about to argue.

Still, he would have liked a bit of warning before he walked into the living room to watch the news - they were _superheros_, of _course_ the news would have coverage - and found a spider the size of a German Shepard crouched on the coffee table watching The Price is Right.

Peter blinked and rubbed at his eyes, thinking he might still be half-asleep, but nope. The big ass spider was still there, and this time he noticed that Natasha was sitting on the couch with her feet propped on its back. The hottie tilted her head back and smiled brightly at the nineteen-year-old and gave him a small wave.

"Pete, hi," she greeted. "Want to join us?" She patted the couch next to her, and Dog-Spider turned a bit to _wave a leg_ at him.

"Um, yeah," Peter managed to get out, still staring and wondering when he was going to wake up. "Where'd Fido the Wonder Spider come from?"

It wasn't until Natasha started laughing and Shelob wriggled in amusement that he realized he'd actually said that out loud.

"Loki seems to be in an arachnid mood this week," the apparently aptly-named Black Widow said cheerfully, shifting one foot to scratch the spider's back fondly. "The other day he was a scorpion for about five hours til he got bored with that and changed into a hermit crab."

Peter just smiled weakly and nodded. Maybe he could talk to Agent Coulson and get a flight out sooner rather than later. Loki was awesome when it came to spell-casting, but this shape-shifting was just a bit too weird for the Amazing Spider-Man.

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><p><strong>Notes: <strong>I... couldn't resist. Giant spider for Spider-Man was just too funny to me XD


	3. Janet Pym

**Disclaimers:** See Chapter 1.

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><p><strong>Janet Pym aka Wasp<strong>

While Janet was positive that she preferred to stay at the Avengers HQ in New York - aka Tony Stark's "summer home" - it was still nice to visit the Malibu house. In her opinion it was too big for just one person living alone or one person with two to three occasional guests, but it was just the right size for the seven people who made up the core group.

Jan stretched as she headed downstairs to Tony's work room since there was no one in the main section of the house and she could hear Jarvis talking through schematics; she figured that Iron Man must be reworking some fiddly programming thing and decided to go bug him. Yes, she was married to a scientist - and damn, she loved it when he talked shop, even if most of it went _right_ over her head at times - and sometimes it helped those types to have someone other than an AI to babble to.

She stopped short as she reached the bottom of the stairs and peeked into the work room. Tony was there all right, along with Darcy and some blonde woman that Jan knew for damned sure hadn't been around last night when she and Hank arrived.

...come to think of it, Hank _had_ left for the SHIELD labs pretty early this morning. He hadn't been opposed to a morning quickie, thank God, but he'd been heading for the shower while she was happily dropping back off to sleep for another couple of hours. Something about wanting to be gone before Loki "got started" or whatever. Maybe the mischief-maker was plotting some prank war and her husband had wanted to be out of the line of fire?

Jan sighed and pushed the door open, barely keeping from rolling her eyes as the other two women glanced up at her entrance. Darcy grinned and waved her cards - it looked like they were playing Gin - while the blonde offered a small, oddly familiar smile before turning her attention back to the game. Janet waved in response - anything else would be just plain rude, even if Tony should have had his conquest take off before friggin' _noon_ - and walked over to where Tony was looking over a virtual diagram of his suit.

"Aren't you being rude to your guest?" she asked in a low voice, not wanting to draw the others' attention.

Tony gave Jan a Look before turning towards Darcy and Blonde Mystery Woman. He watched for a moment then swiveled his chair back around. "Darcy's fine, she entertains herself," he replied. "Besides, Jane _and_ Thor would kill me if I let her borrow one of the cars."

"That sucks," Darcy complained, slamming down a card and trying to draw two; the blonde smacked her fingers and gave her a dirty look. "It's not like they're my parents or anything, and I won't wreck it this time."

Janet wondered if Tony was being dense on purpose. "I'm not talking about Darcy," she explained, tilting her head towards Mystery Blonde.

She was almost insulted when Jane's assistant cracked up.

"I would be insulted that you don't recognize me, what with how many times I've saved your ass," Blonde Woman said, her accent just as strangely familiar as her grin. Something not quite British and not quite human...

...and now she realized why the hell Hank took off before dawn. _"Loki?"_

Darcy responded with golf claps and Blonde Loki nodded with that same smile from before.

Janet sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Do I even want to know?"

"Tony's dull so me and Loki are gonna go have a girl day," Darcy said, bouncing in her seat and ignoring her cards. "We're hitting the MAC store and getting them to do our makeup then, like, only buying lip gloss."

Janet decided to just roll with it. "Mind if I tag along?"

Yeah, it was odd, but she'd been meaning to get to know her fellow Avengers better anyway. Besides, now she was going to have to ask Hank what Loki'd done the last time he was visiting to make him flee so fast. She'd almost wager it was something about snakes, he was _such_ an ophidiophobe.

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><p><strong>Notes: <strong>Ophidiophobia - fear of snakes. Obviously.


	4. Pepper Potts

**Disclaimer:** See Chapter 1.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Originally, Pepper was going to be the one person who just let this all roll right off her back. Then I rewatched both _Iron Man_ films with Apollymi and realized that there was someone even _better_ suited for that role.

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><p><strong>Pepper Potts<strong>

Pepper could quite honestly say that she'd seen many bizarre things while working for Tony Stark: women in and out at all hours of the day, minor explosions caused by her employer trying to tweak something in his work room, the unforgettable sight of Tony's first attempt to get _out_ of the Iron Man suit - she still mentally giggled at that every now and then, mostly when Tony was being obtuse - so there wasn't a lot that gave her pause.

In spite of this fact, or maybe because of it, the strawberry blonde pulled up short when she walked into the kitchen to find Captain Rogers, Agent Barton, and what appeared to be a wolf-dog hybrid sitting at the table eating breakfast. The canine even had a seat of his own and was downing scrambled eggs like they were going out of style.

Pepper stared at the scene for a moment, trying to decide if this was some kind of joke or if maybe she'd quietly gone insane. Coming to no solid conclusion, she opted to go with Option Number Three and turned a stern look to the men.

"I expect Tony to pull stunts like this," she said evenly. "Although I suppose spending so much time with him _would_ cause some idiosyncrasies to be picked up. Whose idea was it to feed a dog at the breakfast table?"

Agent Barton looked genuinely confused. "He always eats breakfast at this time," he replied.

Pepper felt like she was quite possibly having a quiet aneurysm. "He always eats breakfast at this time," she repeated back.

"Yeah. Usually it's pancakes though."

Apparently Captain Rogers noted Pepper's building outburst, because he chose that moment to speak up: "Also, Loki doesn't usually start shape-shifting until after he's eaten. I'm not sure why he's doing it early today, unless he wanted to get a rise out of you, Ms. Potts."

The woman had been waiting to break in and continue to scold the two like they were a couple of errant teenagers but found that she had no words to say. Instead, she closed her mouth and turned her attention to the wolf-dog, who had stopped eating and was watching her intently. He seemed to give her the equivalent of a grin and thumped his tail happily against the back of the chair, and it was only now that she noted the odd eye color: a very vivid and familiar shade of green.

Pepper sighed heavily and barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Wipe your muzzle when you're finished," she finally directed towards Loki, who barked once in reply before diving back into his eggs. For her part, Pepper nodded to the other two men in the room and turned on her heel, intent on tracking down Tony and demanding a raise.

She was prepared for Tony Stark's antics and compensated justly for her patience; she was going to need a bit more money to put up with Loki's shenanigans.


	5. Agent Phil Coulson

**Disclaimer: **See Chapter 1.

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><p><strong>Agent Phil Coulson<strong>

Being SHIELD's official liaison to the Avengers meant that Coulson never had a boring day of work in his life these days. If he wasn't fielding the media or making sure that Thor had actually used Word's spell checker and/or had Dr. Foster read over his reports before filing them, he tended to be on call, checking out potential leads on unusual activity, making sure that Doctors Foster and Selvig had the equipment they needed when they needed it, or dropping in unannounced at Stark's residence to check on His Team.

And yes, so far as Coulson was concerned, the Avengers - from Captain America to the gods of thunder and mischief - was His Team.

Coulson walked into the living room of Stark's home, giving a nod to the people who were scattered about the room. Stark himself was sprawled comfortably on one of the two couches, a cup of coffee (probably his fourth) in hand and chatting quietly with Agent Romanoff, seated next to him but with her feet propped on the table. Agent Barton was on the other side of Romanoff and waved lazily to Coulson as he walked in.

On the opposite sofa, Captain Rogers was flipping through the newspaper while Dr. Banner appeared to be meditating; Coulson wouldn't interrupt until it was necessary to begin the meeting. Beside him was Loki, who had somehow procured a stopwatch and seemed to be timing Banner for reasons known only to him. Thor himself was seated _on_ the coffee table, and he beamed brightly when he spotted the SHIELD liaison.

"Good morning, Avengers," Coulson greeted, noting that Banner took the stopwatch from Loki upon opening his eyes and tucking it into his own pocket. "I know these bimonthly meetings are boring, but they _are_ mandatory."

"We could petition to have them quarterly," Stark commented.

"You avoid the quarterly meetings at your own company," Coulson reminded him as he moved to set up the television for the video conference. "This way we can make sure that you aren't attempting to have someone take notes for you."

Stark effected a hurt look. "Now that is not true."

"So why did I take notes for you at the shareholder's meeting?" Romanoff asked casually, smiling slightly as the men snorted with suppressed laughter (Stark included).

Coulson cleared his throat, not wanting them to get started and then have to put out any fires quickly. "We're ready to begin," he said, stepping back as Director Fury's call connected and the screen went live.

Director Fury looked momentarily surprised before his expression shifted to annoyance. "Why do you have to do this every meeting?" he snapped. "Whether I'm actually in the room or on video conference, you always do this. The meetings aren't _that_ boring, are they?"

Loki blinked innocently, although given that he was currently wearing Director Fury's face it looked more like a wink. "It's because I admire you so," he said seriously. Stark snickered into his coffee cup and Romanoff reached over to smack him. Coulson reminded himself to thank her for that later even as he moved a half-step closer to the shape-shifter.

"In the interest of getting this meeting started and finished quicker, could you possibly choose another form?" he suggested casually. As usually happened, Loki effected a bored shrug and melted easily back into his usual body. For a moment, Coulson wondered if he would continue on into his female form (as he had last meeting) or into one of his teammates (he'd been Romanoff two meetings ago and Miss Lewis the time before that), but this time Loki stopped at his own shape.

Coulson stepped back and listened as Director Fury finally started the meeting. Really, he just couldn't understand why so many people were startled by Loki's chameleon nature. After all, the Avengers had on their roster a World War II hero who was frozen in time at his prime, a CEO with a miniature arc reactor keeping him alive, a scarily accurate marksman, a woman who may or may not have been a gymnast in her past life, a scientist infused with gamma radiation that it was best _not_ to piss off, and a pair of aliens who had been mistaken by the early Norse as gods. It would be more astonishing if one of the team _wasn't_ a shape-shifter.

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><p><strong>Notes: <strong>And boom, finito! This whole thing wound up being in the neighborhood of 2750 words, so I'm oddly impressed with myself right now.

The reason I picked Coulson as the one person who was very very "meh" about the whole thing in spite of _not_ always being around came directly from the first _Iron Man_ film. Specifically the part where he puts a detonator on a door, walks away, and oh-so-goddamn-casually crosses his arms and patiently waits for it to explode.

_That's_ when I went "oh yeah, Loki's shenanigans don't even register for him."

Thank you all for following along with my madness, and I hope you've enjoyed it!


End file.
